2014 — Review

Research Students

Section I Vocabulary

1. "Thank you for coming to our place. Don't ( ) to visit us again."

2. You should avoid eating too much these days. Then, take some exercise and you'll have a good ( ).

3. A new study reports that a member of the army ant family has developed a strategy to ( ) the sounds it makes when collecting food, so that it cannot be heard by its enemies.

4. Thanks to the ( ) of the swimming instructor at my primary school, I overcame my fear of water.

5. The driver ( ) started up the car all of a sudden, nearly running into a telegraph pole at the side of the road.

6. ( ) measures announced by the ministry would be necessary in order to fully stop global warming.

7. A tourist center with a ( ) facade in Asakusa has won the 2012 Good Design Award.

8. The results of the pharmaceutical research were ( ) to the public before the official announcement.

9. A lot of people are refraining from spending money due to the prolonged economic ( ).

10. The trophy and the certificate were ( ) to Jessica and Allison at the closing ceremony.

Section II Grammar

1. The Vienna Boys' Choir sang ( ) celebration of the group's first visit, marking its five centuries of history.

2. Police in central Japan are trying to find some clues ( ) why a highway tunnel collapsed.

3. It's ( ) that more discoveries of a new energy source will be made in seas around the country.

4. Drivers will be able to put their feet ( ) as companies are developing self-driving cars.

5. If it works out, the solution could give a lift to some ancient objects and have them ( ) for future generations.

6. The hole in the ozone layer is smaller this year than last year, and the layer is now ( ) to recovery.

7. By analyzing images of its surface taken by the rover, the NASA Curiosity has found evidence ( ) a stream once flowed on Mars.

8. Some Americans spend hours in their cars every day, trapped in traffic jams, and burn fuel, ( ) they sit and wait.

9. Venice is renowned for its canals, but now a majority of the city is under water as heavy rains and unusually high tides ( ) about 70 percent of the city.

10. The organization says some patients are not receiving treatment because many doctors ( ) see those with complex conditions.

Section III Error Detection

1. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]Of all the unusual customs in the US, [B]anything is such a regular annoyance as tipping. [C]On an average day, you usually have to decide whether to tip, and [D]how much, at least once.

2. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]It is widely told and widely believed that during the Napoleonic Wars [B]a French warship was wrecked off the coast of a small fishing town in North East England. [C]The only survivor washed ashore, the story goes, [D]was a monkey dressing in a French uniform.

3. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]The sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis have been caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, [B]according to a report published on Thursday, [C]with far more of the world's population now living into old age and [D]dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

4. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]The well-preserved state of the frozen mammoth is what makes the discovery especially extraordinary. [B]Much of the carcass still have scraps of flesh, fur and organs intact. [C]The mammoth also has a massive hump of fat on his back. [D]The fat helped mammoths keep warm during the freezing Arctic winters.

5. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]Baumgartner's space jump made headlines for breaking two world records and [B]for making him the first human to break the sound barrier. [C]That's the speed which sound waves are produced in the air. [D]Baumgartner wore a monitoring system to help the crew gather scientific data from the jump.

6. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]As a whole, Americans do not get enough sleep. [B]The National Sleep Foundation recommends 10 to 11 hours of shut-eye per night for children aged 5 to 12. [C]A study found that about 41 million American workers get less than six hours of sleep per night. [D]Now health experts worry that adults are passing their poor sleeping habits up to their children.

7. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]"Drink your milk. It's good for you!" [B]You've probably heard that many times, and it's true. [C]The U.S. government even requires milk as part of the National School Lunch Program, [D]saying that students should drink one cup of fat-free or low-fat milk at each meals.

8. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]Families in refugee camps are given food aid, but they still have to cook it. [B]In order to do such, refugee women leave the safety of the camps three to five times a week to gather firewood. [C]They walk up to seven hours a day to find enough wood to fuel their stoves. [D]This can be dangerous because of street violence in the area.

9. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]Have you ever dreamed of becoming a superhero? [B]There's a real Iron Man suit, XOS 2, that instantly transforms the person wearing it. [C]The suit provides the power to lift 200 pounds with easy and break slabs of wood in a single karate chop. [D]It was designed to help the military with heavy lifting and one person in the suit could do the work of three soldiers.

10. Identify the grammatically incorrect part:

[A]Over the past 15 years, the popularity of bounce houses at birthday parties, fairs and other events has grown. [B]Unfortunately, so has the number of children who suffer injuries while play in bounce houses. [C]More than a third of the injuries occur with children younger than five. [D]Children should use extreme caution when playing on these devices.

Section IV Cloze

Why do the words 'God' and 'I' have capital letters? This is presented as if it's a difficult or controversial question, maybe about the status of religion. After all, some of us were told at school that God is capitalized out of respect for the Almighty. But this is just a diversion. The answer is quite simple: in English, proper names are always given an initial capital letter, and God is a proper name, just as Gordon and Barack are. The word 'God' should still be capitalized even if you have no respect, unless you are referring to the being known as God — in other words, when the being's proper name is God. So even an atheist should capitalize God, although he has no more belief in God than he does in Puff the Magic Dragon. You might split hairs if you were a particularly tricky kind of atheist and try to say that because you don't believe he exists he can't have a proper name, but you'd be wrong because possession of a proper name is not a proof or even acceptance of something's existence, any more than Superman's is. But the word 'god' should not have a capital, of course, if it's used descriptively rather than as a proper name — when you're referring to just any god, or one of the gods, or a real goddess. The word 'I' is the only personal pronoun to be capitalized, and it may simply be that the single letter 'i' would look insufficient in lower case. A grey area would seem to arise, perhaps, when you use personal pronouns for God, but you would use capitals when referring to His Majesty, or His Holiness, so it may be right to insist on capitalizing Him when referring to God, regardless of respect, because Him could be used as a title, not a personal pronoun. I think, though, that most people accept that a lower case 'him' is the norm nowadays. The distinction between capitals and non-capitals or, in printing terminology, upper and lower case, emerged only in the Middle Ages in European languages. In classical texts, all letters were capitals. The rules for usage vary with each language, and have varied throughout history. All European languages begin sentences and lines in verse with capitals, but within sentences and lines usage varies. In German, every proper noun is given a capital, and that was once true of English. Now only specific names and things such as adjectives derived from nouns have capitals.

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Section V_1 Reading I

Perhaps the worst misfortune to befall the world's gorillas is that they live in some of the most resource-rich and lawless parts of the planet. Their forest homes in Africa are rich in timber, gold, diamonds and the rare mineral used in electronic devices like cell phones. The race to obtain such natural resources is largely to blame for their habitat loss. Along with loss of living areas, the apes face threats from human population growth and a surge in the bush meat trade, with locals and organized traders killing wildlife to eat and sell. Gorilla meat forms a part of illegal bush meat hunting, which is carried out in West and Central Africa. Although bush meat hunting may involve different kinds of animals, it usually focuses on the hunting of great apes like gorillas and bonobos. This high rate of hunting accompanied by a gradual habitat loss has resulted in a sharp drop in the population of wild gorillas. A U.N. report warns that most of the remaining gorillas in Africa could become extinct within 10 to 15 years. Farming was the original livelihood of Central Africa. The local African population had several taboos regarding gorilla meat, but a rise in the population along with a poor economy resulted in the large scale hunting of gorillas. They were the easiest source of meat for the poor, rural families. A single animal could easily feed an entire family for a week. Also, mining and logging camps hire professional poachers to feed their workers and the refugees who have fled nearby conflict. Though gorillas still make up a tiny percentage of the trade, losses can be devastating, because the gorilla numbers are so low and their communities are so tightly knit. Gorillas are the largest primate species that inhabit the forests of Central Africa. All these species of gorilla are now protected under the Endangered Species Act. However, this has not stopped poachers from illegally hunting the animals for their meat as it is sold on the illegal bush meat market for a huge profit. The meat is also illegally exported to underground western markets in London, New York and Paris, where it is prepared as a part of wealthy diners. In the year 2006, over 5000 gorillas died from an outbreak of the Ebola Virus in Central Africa. Hunters who catch and trap gorillas could have been trapping sick animals and selling contaminated meat in bush meat markets in Central Africa. This is extremely dangerous to humans as doctors have stated that consuming meat from sick animals could cause zoonotic diseases to jump species resulting in far more virulent and dangerous human diseases that do not have any treatment. In fact, most researchers feel that the HIV disease was a completely simian disease that originated in chimpanzees. Human contact with the infected meat could have resulted in the virus jumping species to form the HIV disease and infection.

1. What is NOT mentioned as one of the reasons for the decrease in the number of gorillas in Africa?

2. According to the U.N. report, gorillas in Africa

3. The local people in Central Africa

4. Illegal hunting of the animals for their meat

5. Eating bush meat has a potential danger because

Section V_2 Reading II

What would you do to earn money if all you had was five dollars and two hours? This is the assignment I gave students in one of my classes at Stanford University. Each of fourteen teams received an envelope with five dollars of "seed funding" and was told they could spend as much time as they wanted planning. However, once they cracked open the envelope, they had two hours to generate as much money as possible. I gave them from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday evening to complete the assignment. Then, on Sunday evening, each team had to send me one slide describing what they had done, and on Monday afternoon each team had three minutes to present their project to the class. They were encouraged to be entrepreneurial by identifying opportunities, challenging assumptions, leveraging the limited resources they had, and by being active. What would you do if you were given this challenge? When I ask this question to most groups, someone usually shouts out, "Go to Las Vegas," or "Buy a lottery ticket." This gets a big laugh. These folks would take a significant risk in return for a small chance at earning a big reward. The next most common suggestion is to set up a car wash or lemonade stand, using the five dollars to purchase the starting materials. This is a fine option for those interested in earning a few extra dollars of spending money in two hours. But most of my students eventually found a way to move far beyond the standard responses. They took seriously the challenge to question traditional assumptions — exposing a wealth of possibilities — in order to create as much value as possible. How did they do this? Here's a clue: the teams that made the most money didn't use the five dollars at all. They realized that focusing on the money actually framed the problem way too tightly. They understood that five dollars is essentially nothing and decided to reinterpret the problem more broadly: What can we do to make money if we start with absolutely nothing? They ramped up their observation skills, tapped into their talents, and unlocked their creativity to identify problems in their midst — problems they experienced or noticed others experiencing — problems they might have seen before but had never thought to solve. These problems were nagging but not necessarily at the forefront of anyone's mind. By unearthing these problems and then working to solve them, the winning teams brought in over $600, and the average return on the five dollar investment was 4,000 percent! If you take into account that many of the teams didn't use the funds at all, then their financial returns were infinite.

1. What was the assignment given to the students in one of the classes at Stanford University?

2. Which of the following actions of the students was admired the most by the instructor?

3. How did the instructor decide on the winner of the assignment?

4. What were the students likely to be expected to learn from the assignment?

5. Which of the following statements is TRUE about the passage?